Mon 12 Aug 2019
On leaving Kurt’s family, we would gradually wend our way south towards San Francisco over the next three weeks or so, moving between different national parks and wilderness areas.
However, our first direction on departing Kurt’s home (in the USA’s Pacific North West) was a bit further north, then a bit further west, following the coast of Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. This peninsula, bounded by the Pacific Ocean, Strait of Juan de Fuca and Hood Canal, comprises 3600 square miles of some of the last-to-be-explored places in the USA (excluding Alaska). It was largely unmapped until a little over a hundred years ago and still retains something of a pioneering, ‘edge of the world’ feel.
Today, we set off at 8:30 a.m., aiming to reach and enjoy a walk from the little coastal hamlet of Ozette, around 3 hours drive away, where we’d camped 18 years ago, close to the furthest north-west point of the contiguous states of the USA.
After an hour or so’s driving, we passed yesterday’s berry picking location, then went through Port Angeles. The quiet road became ever more deserted and we had several sightings of black-tailed deer ambling across the tarmac. We were about 40 minutes from Ozette, coasting along an empty, perfectly straight, flat, well-maintained road when – ker-thump! – the car had a close encounter with Washington’s one-and-only pothole. The pressure sensor in the car suggested that we had developed a slow puncture, so we limped on to the first repair station we could find in this lightly populated part of the country, ‘Gary Fernandes’ in Clallam Bay.
The chap working there popped some air into our tyre at no cost and a friendly chap from Seattle (out this way visiting family) let us use his mobile phone for quite a while to call our rental car company to get any repairs pre-authorised. (You’ll remember that I accidentally binned our SIM card a couple of weeks ago, so we had no working mobile phone.) Whilst Dave made the call, I chatted with the owner of the mobile phone. By pure luck, it turned out that, now retired, he had spent many years going over to the UK to do stints of work at the very same organisation I had worked at for many years, and in the very same town.
To give you an idea of how little-known this corner of the USA is – and I’m thinking here at ‘state-level’, obviously not expecting anyone to know where Clallam Bay or Ozette is – here is a short transcript of part of the telephone conversation Dave had with the rental car operator.
American operator: “Which state are you in?”
Dave: “Washington.”
America operator: “Washington? Washington, did you say? Where’s that? Is that a state?”
The advice (from the repair station: not a lot of help from the rental car company) was that our best bet was to backtrack 2 miles to Cains Marine Service, which doubled up as an auto-parts store, to buy and apply some Fix-A-Flat sealant, in hopes of continuing to Ozette for our walk. Then, if required, we could get a proper puncture repair done (or the tyre replaced) in Forks, which would be the next town of any size we’d pass on heading south-east after Ozette.
We drove back the couple of miles as advised. At Cains Marine Service, the chap there, rather than just sell us some Fix-A-Flat, first had a good look at the wheel and tyre to see what was wrong. He explained that Fix-A-Flat would be of no use in this case as the inner rim was badly damaged and that was where the air was leaking out. He said our best bet was to head right back (an hour’s drive) to Port Angeles, where Les Schwab Tires would be able to sort out a new wheel rim (he thought Forks could probably do a tyre, but not a wheel rim).
We needed to fit the spare wheel to get us all the way back to Port Angeles. This wouldn’t normally have been a problem for us, but, on this occasion, the wheel that needed changing had been significantly over-torqued whilst in the care of the rental company. The wheel nuts were impossible to release with hand tools. Going well beyond the call of duty, the chap at Cains Marine Service got the wheel nuts off with a power gun, fitted the spare wheel, torqued the wheel nuts up correctly, and put the spare to the correct pressure. He wouldn’t take payment for any of this, so we insisted on at least giving him some beer money.
We then drove back in the direction of Port Angeles, realising that we weren’t going to reach Ozette today in time to do anything meaningful, so ought to re-plan where to stop for the night. As we passed the beautiful Lyre River campground, one of a number of rustic campgrounds run by Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), we decided to pop in and enquire about spaces for tonight.
Brenda, the ‘camp host’, said there were a couple of spaces available at that time, but that DNR sites don’t take reservations and the spaces would probably be taken by the time we returned from Port Angeles. Even though we didn’t have time to pitch the tent immediately, as we needed to reach Les Schwab in good time before it closed (since we had no appointment), she said our best bet was to complete the DNR slip straight away and put it on the post clip at the entrance to our chosen pitch.
We should then leave something on the pitch as an additional visual clue that the pitch was taken, a couple of deckchairs maybe. We didn’t have any, but our filled, 10 litre water container would fit the bill, it seemed. Brenda said that payment was through purchasing a DNR ‘Discover Pass’ (US$35 as a one-off fee to cover all our stays at DNR campgrounds for a whole year). They weren’t sold at the campground, but we could buy one in Port Angeles as we were going there anyway.
We set off to Les Schwab. Incredibly, this family-run chain of wheel and tyre specialists was the third place in a row that offered exceptional service. In this case, they were able to see us within 45 minutes, we were told to help ourselves to complimentary coffee, popcorn and wifi whilst we waited, and then – because they were able to bend the rim back into place rather than replace any parts – they refused to accept any payment, from us or the hire car company!
[Use arrows or swipe to scroll photos.] On the beach at Tongue Point in Salt Creek Recreation Area, and adjacent Crescent Beach as we drove west along the coast.
Fully mobile again, we bought a DNR ‘Discover Pass’, firewood and kindling from the other end of town, then turned back towards Ozette and the Lyre River campground. We stopped on the way for a brief playground visit and short walk to the lookout over Crescent Beach at Tongue Point in Salt Creek Recreation Area, to help break up what had been an entire day of driving (three times along some stretches) and waiting around.
We got back to the Lyre River campground around 6:20 p.m., ready to pitch the tent ... only to find someone else putting their tent up on the very pitch we’d already taken ... and our water container missing!
I leapt out of the car to find out what was happening. It turned out that someone unknown had stolen our water container, which was unusual and very annoying (and had a big impact on the next couple of days, although we weren’t to know it yet). Robbed of that visual clue, Megan (the woman pitching her tent) had then completely mis-read the dates of our displayed DNR slip and, when approached, confidently told me that I’d got the dates wrong and the site was therefore available for the night. I retrieved the DNR slip and showed her, and then she backed down.
I felt sorry for Megan, as she was in the same position as we’d have been if we hadn’t already chanced to pop in, so I suggested that we share the pitch, rather than one of us having nowhere to stay. (To be honest, I’m not sure if she’d have done the same if it had been our mistake, but we like to be helpful. Besides which, we had already had so many people go out of their way to assist us today – excluding the water container thief, of course – that it felt nice to share the goodwill around.)
I checked with Brenda that it was O.K. to share a pitch (it was fine: DNR limit the number of people, cars, etc. on each pitch, but our two units weren’t exceeding the maximum), then we got on with pitching our tents on opposite sides of the little flat area and shared the picnic table. May spotted that Megan was having difficulty getting her tent up, so chipped in to assist of her own accord, whilst Poppy helped Dave and me to sort our stuff. Megan had forgotten her matches for cooking, so I gave her a box of ours. The girls were very taken with Megan’s 2-year-old rescue dog.
Poppy and I then went round a few nearby pitches to see if anyone had noticed who’d made off with our water container. No-one had seen anything, but we picked up some good tips for places to stay further south during our trip, so it was worth the wander.
Just before bed, we popped out for a short, early-dusk walk in the forest. It turned out to be an even shorter walk than we’d planned as Dave unfortunately mentioned the word ‘bear’ about 10 minutes into the walk. Both girls became absolutely terrified, quaking and shaking with fear, and we had to head straight back the way we had come. Nice one, Dave...
[ENDNOTE: I definitely advise against picking up snakes, dead or alive. But, as you might have guessed, the photos above were merely a length of seaweed.]
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